Nearly 25% of teachers qualified since 2011 have quit

“Almost a quarter of the teachers who have qualified since 2011 have already left the profession, according to official figures that have prompted further concerns about the pressures on the profession.

Of those who qualified in 2011 alone, 31% had quit within five years of becoming teachers, the figures show.

The official rate of dropouts from the profession was published as the government came under pressure to relax the 1% pay cap that has been placed on teachers’ pay until 2020.

Analysis of official figures shows that more than 27,500 teachers who trained between 2011 and 2015 had already left the job by last year. It means that just over 23% of about 117,000 teachers who qualified over the period have left.

The figures follow complaints by Tory MPs that the overall schools budget is too small and needs to be increased.

Justine Greening, the education secretary, is known to be sympathetic to both relaxing the pay cap and increasing public spending on schools, but is one of a series of cabinet ministers making spending demands on Philip Hammond, the chancellor.

Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, who uncovered the figures showing the number of teachers leaving the profession, said they highlighted the “sheer scale of the crisis that the Tories have created in teacher recruitment and retention”.

“Teachers are leaving our classrooms in record numbers, and the crisis is getting worse year after year. We are now at the point that more teachers are leaving than staying,” she said. “The government has serious questions to answer on the impact of their policies such as the continued cap on public sector pay, and their failure to tackle the issues like excessive workload that affect teachers in the classroom.

“It is time that ministers finally admitted that we are at a crisis point, and came up with a proper plan of action to deal with it.”

… Recent analysis by the Education Policy Institute found teachers in England are working longer hours on average than in most other countries. Full-time teachers in England reported working 48.2 hours a week on average, including evenings and weekends.

It was 19% longer than the average elsewhere of 40.6 hours. Only Japan and Alberta reported longer average working hours than teachers in England.

The analysis found that half of full-time teachers work between 40 and 58 hours, while a fifth of teachers work 60 hours or more.

Teaching unions have been urging ministers to lift the pay cap. They also want to make it cheaper for teachers to train and to introduce measures to encourage teachers to stay in post in areas with significant recruitment problems.”